GreshamFar From Under

San Francisco and the Bay Area have graced the world with stoned, absurdist beats since the days of Digital Underground and Del the Funky Homosapien. Two new releases from San Fran’s Function 8 keep it rolling, shall we say, some 15 years later. A chap named Gresham makes his debut on the “Far From Under” twelve-inch, featured in its acoustic form and fully automated. The trip-hop version suffers from a lackadaisical vocal take, but more importantly the song just isn’t suited to the grid-like precision of breakbeats; the vocals need room to squiggle within the tempo. The brief acoustic version is better; Gresham’s vocals are more impassioned and the song’s melodic hooks of the song are better emphasised. The flip, “Autonomy,” starts with a nifty double-time drum break and gives us a more up-tempo, yet bluesy groove. This one’s catchy.
(Function 8)